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The Lakeside Press. A Description of Its Business, Illustrations and Specimens of Work. Photo-Engravers, Lithographers[,] Printers and Bookbinders.

Portland, Maine: The Lakeside Press, [ca. 1895]. 4to (11.875” x 9.25”), embossed pictorial wrappers. [18] pp., numerous b&w and color plates. CONDITION: Good, covers lightly foxed with minor wear to extremities, embossed title slightly rubbed, spine split and repaired in three places with document repair tape, string binding coming undone, gutter on pp. [2]–[3] fully split, a few additional minor tape repairs and surface tears to contents.

Stated enlarged edition of a rare specimen publication issued by The Lakeside Press of Portland, Maine, highlighting the firm’s work across a variety of printing and binding methods.

In the introductory remarks, the company describes its intent in “putting forth a new edition, to show more completely the lines of business we are engaged in, by a more liberal display of the various products of our facilities.” The several dozen specimens featured here span several printing techniques, each accompanied by a written description of the process. The book also features eye-catching art nouveau-style imagery, ornamentation, and stylized fonts.

Photo-engraving is one of the printing techniques documented most extensively. The book features numerous black-and-white plates made using the half-tone process, including four full-page images: “City Hall, Portland,” “Views Near Gardiner, Maine” (a photo collage), “The Heart of the Notch” (a reproduction of a painting), and “Portland Head Light.” Photo-engraved plates produced impressions by the thousands, could be electrotyped, and allowed subjects to be “enlarged, reduced, or made same size of copy” in varying degrees of fineness, as demonstrated on p. [15]. The other photo-engraving process offered, depicted on p. [14], was that of “line reproduction,” for reproducing drawings and other works of linear quality. Photo-engraved images are also used to highlight clients from out-of-state, such as the Ormond Hotel in Florida and the Hotel Aragon in Atlanta. 

For lithographed work, the Lakeside Press solicited orders for “letter and bill-heads, checks, labels, show-cards, advertisements, in color or plan….” Specimens from these categories fill three spreads, including a full-color spread of a dozen product labels on pp. [8]–[9], some with gilt ink. A diversity of Maine-based products and businesses are represented in this section, such as Murdock & Freeman Ginger Ale, Cumberland National Bank, Gorham Water Company, and Portland Stoneware Company.

The last category of work described is book-printing and bookbinding, bolstered by the acquisition of the George H. Davis bindery. Lakeside advertises magazines, periodicals, account books, and “publications of all sorts, bound in any style promptly.” The firm also offered restoration and rebinding work. 

The Lakeside Press operated from 1890 to 1931, specializing in photomechanical reproductions, commercial lithography, and Maine-related publications. Its offices circa 1895 were located at 117–119 Middle Street, in downtown Portland. The principal partners then were William H. Scott (President), Novello Crafts (General Manager), Philip J. Larabee (Secretary), and Lewis A. Goudy (Treasurer). The firm should not be confused with a Chicago-based company of the same name. 

OCLC records no holdings of this edition nor any other. 

A rare and attractive promotional publication for a firm proclaiming itself the “most completely equipped printing house east of New York.”

REFERENCES: Last, Jay. The Color Explosion: Nineteenth-Century American Lithography, (Santa Ana, Calif.: Hillcrest Press, 2005), pp. 44–45.

Item #10582

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